mattis: yesterday. reporter: after you said that? sec. mattis: yes. reporter: second, you talked about targeting the chemical weapons infrastructure of assad. if there were any chemical weapons or agents in those facilities that you targeted, i assume they would create health hazards in the region, or no? gen. dunford: we don't believe. we did very close analysis, as the chairman pointed out. we did everything we could in our intelligence assessment and our planning to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties. we are very much aware this is difficult to do in a situation like this, especially when the poison gas that assad assured the world he had gotten rid of obviously still exists. it is a challenging problem set and we have the right military officers dealing with it. reporter: you could confirm there would be no leak into the air? gen. dunford: of course not, we will do our best. reporter: general dunford, when the surface to air sensors engaged, did they become a target? did u.s. air power or other assets take ou

mattis -- sect mattis and perhaps anti-eric and explosions reverberating off of hillsides and depending on where you are -- a lot of information coming around here. now syrian state television has claimed some of the attacks on homs were thwarted. now secretary mattis referred -- sorry general referred to surfa surface to air missile retaliation being noted but i point out, don, from the moment in which we heard eyewitness reports in damascus, while trvp was speaking of first explosions, moment jim mattis said was over is an hour and 10 minutes. a small window for the strikes to occur. a lot of the places i'm talking about -- historically appear to have been hit in the past often by israeli jets who had a lot of -- into syria and taking out specific threats that concern them. on top of that, reuters are quoting -- a senior pro-assad official unnamed, if this is it, this is limited. so perhaps the messaging from damascus even though the strikes are frankly the worst that the residents will have seen for quite sometime, we haven't really had people responding on social media or across the

mattis: say the last part again, tom? reporter: what is your evidence delivered by the syrian regime? are you quite clear it was? sec. mattis: i am confident the syrian regime conducted a chemical attack on innocent people in this last week, yes, absolutely confident of it. we have the intelligence level of confidence we needed to conduct the attack. reporter: as far as the actual chemical used, do know what it was? a nerve agent, chlorine? do you have a sense of what it was? sec. mattis: we are very much aware of one of the agents. there may have been more than one agent used. we are not clear on that yet. we know at least one chemical agent was used. reporter: to clarify on deconfliction, you notified russians ahead of time before the operation what you are going to do and what targets you would strike? gen. dunford: to be clear, the only communications that took place specifically associated with this operation before the targets were struck was the normal deconfliction of the airspace, the procedures that are in place

mattis: that will depend on mr. assad, should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future and of course, the powers that have signed the chemical weapons prohibition have every reason to challenge assad should he choose to violate that. right now, this is a one-time -- hasd i believe it is sent a very strong message to dissuade him, to deter him from doing this again. >> [indiscernible] we will give you a full brief in the morning, right now we have no reports of losses. reporter: you seen any retaliation from the russians or the iranians, and how long do you think this operation could last? is it a matter of hours, days, or could he go longer than that? gen. dunford: we did have some air missileace to activity from the syrian regime, that is the only retaliatory action we are aware of at this time. operation, wethe have completed the targets that were assigned to central command. those operations are complete. reporter: general dunford or secretary mattis, could you talk more about your concerns that you e

question to secretary mattis. up until yesterday, i'm going to quote you, you said i cannot tell you that we have evidence. when did you become confident that the chemical attack had been? sec. mattis: yesterday. >> after you said that? sec. mattis: yes. >> second, you said about targeting the chemical weapons infrastructure. if there were actually any chemical weapons or agents in those facilities that you targeted, i assume they would create health hazards in the region, or no? .en. dunford: we don't believe we did very close analysis, as the chairman pointed out. we did everything we could in our intelligence assessment and to thenning to minimize maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties. we are very much aware. this is difficult to do in a situation like this, especially dhen the poison gas that assa should the world that he had gotten rid of existed. we have the right military officers dealing with it. >> there will be no leak into the air? gen. dunford: we will do our best. dunford, when the

we know there is a split going on between mattis and bolton. it is very likely mattis was able to take back some of these targets and the scope of this attack. but when you look at what the effect this has had internationally, it's only helped assad claim power. it only helped him form further power over the people of syria. it's only helped the russians say to bashar al-assad, you need us here. look, we've already seen reports that the russians are moving more weapons, more equipment into syria. but it allows them to say to the syrian president, if we were not here, your regime would be possibly in danger. if the u.s. was serious by doing this. the other thing about this is what we've been talking about all week. half a million people in syria have died in a seven-year brutal civil war. most of those people have died not by chemical weapons but by very crude weapons, these barrel bombs and by simply being shot and blown up by the syrian army. that's not going to change. assad is only going to continue to widen his grip on syria. this war is pr

that's mattis' justification. i think another thing we need to look for in the next 12 to 24 hours is any daylight between president trump's rhetoric, even his tweets, and what secretary mattis and the generals are saying here at the pentagon. >> a good point to make. hans, thanks a lot for your reporting tonight. >>> we want to show you a social media video as you may have seen on your own device, as you may be aware is coming in to us. we have this with sound we can air. this came to us from syria as the attack was getting started. so you saw there what appeared to be and sound like impacts in part of at least the outskirts of damascus. malcolm nance is still standing by to talk to us. malcolm, anything through your eyes and ears we should know about that video, a lot of which will be coming in overnight? >> well, what it sounds like is that that's the air defense boxes of triple-a, anti-aircraft artillery going up in the air and just shooting. my first strike in syria was in 1983, but i spent the better part of

mattis agree was that i think. planners is when we have more belkys about chemical strikes which will come i think what is the bar for action? is it how many people are killed? is it the type of chemical agent use snd those are the types of questions ambassador bolton have to answer with the national security councils. >> thank you all. i appreciate it when we come back more on the raeg breaking news air strikes by the u.s. and allies in syria. just listen. (vo) there's so much we want to show her. we needed a car that would last long enough to see it all. (avo) subaru outback. ninety eight percent are still on the road after 10 years. come on mom, let's go! sarge, i just got a tip. that'll crack this case wide open! turns out the prints at the crime scene- awwwww...did mcgruffy wuffy get a tippy wippy? i'm serious! we gotta move fast before- who's a good boy? is him a good boy? erg...i'm just gonna go. oh, you wanna go outside? you gotta go tinky poo-poo? i already went, ok? in the bathroom! as long as people talk

i think if we separate those, i think that's what general mattis kind of tried to do.et's get a handle, make it measured, narrow and well defined that this is about the chemical weapons, it is about syria's use. everything else we're doing in syria against isis is a different problem set. let's try and kind of separate these for now. when we talk about the bigger syria problem set, we need to have the larger objectives. what are we trying to do? there is a lot of dissidence on that. >> there's been a lot of disagreement. even to the level of what this strike would be. congressman i'm sure you have heard more of the inside chatter. it sounded like it was coming to a head with the president wanting to do something much more aggressive. his generals saying let's be precise -- precise about this. he's the commander-in-chief. he has great respect for the military. when it came down to this, it seems like this is potentially a compromise between the two. >> in the words of george w. bush, ultimately the president is the decider. it is mattis's role to be cautious if he feels

we just heard from secretary mattis. here's what he said. >> tonight, france, the united kingdom and the united states took decisive action. clearly, the assad regime did not get the message last year. >> general dunford said that syrian surface to air missiles had been engaged at the beginning of the air strikes. they, however, have not reported that there were any u.s. or allied losses as a result of those sam missiles being fired. there was no sign that the russians engaged in any way. general dunford said that the deconfliction hot line was employed but the u.s. did not give russia any advance warning about the targets. it was important that they not choose any sites where they thought russians could be killed in the process. they also wanted to minimize, according to secretary mattis, any potential for civilian casualties. that's why this was a somewhat limited strike. but there were about twice the number of munitions used this year as opposed to last year's strike, after assad used chemical weapons a year ago. so

question to secretary mattis. up until yesterday, and i'm going to quote you have here, you said, i cannot tell you we have evidence. so when did you become confident that a chemical attack happened? >> yesterday. >> yesterday. after you said that? >> yes. >> and then, second, you talked about targeting the chemical weapons infrastructure of al al-assad if there were any chemical weapons in those facilities you targeted, i would assume they would create a health hazard in the region? >> we did very close analysis, as the chairman pointed out, we did everything we could in our intelligence assessment and our planning to minimize to the maximum degree possibly any chance of civilian casualties, we are very much aware this is difficult to do in a situation like this. especially when the poison gas that assad assured the world he had gotten rid of obviously still exists. so it is a challenging problem set and we had the right military officers dealing with it. >> you can confirm there's going to be no leak into the ai

it was three targets, a one-time shot to use mattis's ling oe. we could use this to not waste a crisis and really degrade his ability to wage war on his own people. and again you saw doneferred, the chairman, mattis show strategic restraint and i'm wondering at this hour what is motivating that and i'm wondering if they -- the president who's been distracted this week. he's shown he's impulsive. he's been irattic in his rhetoric. he has taken a long time to kind of set this up and yet at the end the actual operational activity was very limited and at the end of the day i think they questioned being prepared to do the hard work of really taking on the assad regime. >> that is the wider question because if you want to go after command and control as no one needs to remind you, then you're going to kill some russians and then your are are going to bang up some russian equipment and you're going to be presiding over a much more complicated you break it, you buy it kind of strategy. >> i thought what we were going to see was something different. a cle

secretary mattis: -- secretary mattis: it's critical we have a unified america when we make the great decision on troops. senator kaine: as i close, senator corcoran and i have introduced an authorization that has -- is being taken up at the senate foreign relations committee soon. we plan to incorporate that authorization secretary mattis. , some of the concerns you expressed in the 2017 letter and testimony, it is bipartisan and thus involves compromises. since the chair of the committee has expressed. -- desire to take it up, and a look forward to working with you and other administration officials to express that bipartisan resolve. secretary mattis: thank you. >> thank you, senator kaine. he is here first. >> oh. >> i think, this. ok. senator donnelly. donnelly: i will remind those remaining that our timer has now malfunctioned. [laughter] >> is there a reason you said that right before i spoke mr. chairman,? [laughter] senator donnelly: thank you to the witnesses. fornt to thank all of you your implementation of the act, requirements regarding military suicide. i know how hard y

. >>> there were also tensions between president trump and defend secretary james mattis ahead of the air strikes. "the new york times" reporting mattis wanted congress to authorize the use of force before the military launched its attack. sources say the president wanted to back up his tweets with action despite the possibility of sparking a larger clash with russia. the end result of the limited strikes was said to be a compromise between trump and mattis. >>> there's a new late-season snowstorm moving into the plains. in the south, temperatures are soaring. pedram javaheri with the forecast. >>> somebody tell mother nature we are almost a month into the spring season, and wintry weather yet again across portions of the dakotas. working down toward parts of iowa. that's where i think really the best bet for significant snow could be in place over the next 24 or so hours. we have winter weather alerts in line for roughly ten million people across wisconsin, points southward into areas around waterloo, cedar rapids, des moines. a quick-moving system comes through. but packs a potent p

look, i accept is secretary mattis at his word.believes that syria was responsible for the deployment of these chemicals. and i do as well. >> all right. congressman, great to have you with us. thank you very much is for joining us this morning. >> he brings up a good point. it's a criticism we have heard over and over again. there have been a decrease in acceptance of syrian refugees in this country. the united states is not accepting refugees to provide them safe harbor in this country right now. >>> all right. coming up, even, as the congressman asked, what is the strategy going forward? the president is prepared to sustain attacks on syria. has secretary of defense telling a different story. an update from the pentagon at the top of the hour. keep it here. you're watching msnbc. & he's got wide feet. & with edge-to-edge intelligence you've got near real time inventory updates. & he'll find the same shoes in your store that he found online he'll be one happy, very forgetful wide footed customer. at&t provides edge to edge intell

and secretary mattis said the u.s. and allies used more than twice the amount of munition used on the strike last year in which 59 tomahawk missiles were fired. sfshgs apparently the assad regime did not get the message last year. this time our allies are striking harder. we will send a message to assad and his murderous lieutenants and they will be held accountable. >> secretary mattis made those remarks and joined by general joseph dun ford who said syria air missiles were trying to engage. but there were nope ally loss says and they did not give russia heads up about what the targets will be. listen here. >> with regard to russia concerns, we scientificly identified these tashingets to mitigate the risk of russian forces being involved and used normal deconflicting channels. and we did not coordinate with the russians or prenotify them. >> the french defense min ichter contradicted what the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff just said. he said that russia was warned ahead of the strikes a little bit unclear if he

we heard from general mattis, secretary mattis saying that the russians may not have noticed a change in their dec-confliction daily phone calls. the french president called the president earlier in the day before the strikes happening overnight. and we've heard from the french saying that clearly that the intention here was to signal that they didn't want an escalation. we know that president macron told president putin that he wanted to continue their conversation. so there was this real effort to avoid an escalatian -- escalation here. russia has not changed its strategic aims inside syria. there's no indication that putin did what president trump suggested, that he turn away from the dark path that he is on in supporting president assad or done what mattis suggested that russia move the u.n. toward the peace talks in geneva. quite the opposite really. we've heard essentially a doubling down from russia's military saying that they will -- they're considering upgrading syria's air defense capabilities. they claim to have had success last night shooting down the number, significant n

this time secretary mattis saying double the number of weapons used. trying to up the ante if you will in the efforts to curb the syrian regime chemical weapons program. >> ryan, stand by. sam kylely pl let's bring you .u.s. ambassador said in response to the u.s., the possessor ever the big ez artisanals chemical weapons has no moral right to blame other countries. has russia indicated any kind of response. >> reporter: not really not yet. it's early in the morning. and i think the russians will want to get -- do their own battle damage assessment as it's called to a assess the extent to which the syrian regime has been hit. and whether there's beenny collateral damage to russian facilities or indeed iranian facilities. but just to pick up the point there, the russian ambassador to washington, mr. anton ov the in the same statement said the warnings have been left under hear. he says the action attention will not be left without consequences. and the spokes woman here has said slr things. keeping i think the part warm while the kremlin trying to figur

mattis and dunford said a wave of air strikes now concluded. secretary mattis said, what does this mean sustained. we have not yet seen. may be part of the sustained campaign. that will hopefully unfold in the coming days, brian. >> all right, court knee. by the way while you were locked in the pentagon briefing room, prior to the briefing we did hear from the brits. that they used -- tornados, tornado aircraft and, and fired missiles of their own presumably from ships they had moved into the area. courtney talked about difference in the president's remarks and defense secretary mattis. tonight the first part of a more sustained campaign. so we want to show you -- at least a portion of president trump's remarks, tonight, to a national audience, at, 1:30 after the 9:00 p.m. hour eastern time. when he appeared to announce this military operation. establishing this deterrent is a vital national security interest of the united states. the combined, american, british, french response to these atrocities will in the great all instruments of our natio

james mattis and also the chairman of thejoint chiefs of staff, generaljoe dunford.e response at this time. those are the details we will pull together for you ina details we will pull together for you in a moment. the targets tonight, again, were specifically designed to degrade the syrian war machine's ability to create chemical weapons and to set that back. there we re weapons and to set that back. there were no attempts to broaden or expand that target set. ladies and gentlemen, thank you to coming in this evening. based on recent experience we fully expect a significant disinformation campaign over the coming days by those who have aligned themselves with the aside regime. —— assad. in an effort to maintain transparency and accuracy, my assistant for public affairs, ms dayna white, and lieutenant general mackenzie, the director of the joint staff here in washington, will provide a brief of known details tomorrow morning, we anticipate about nine o'clock, in this same location. thank you again for coming in this evening ladies and gentlemen. that was a breathing

i should point out that yesterday general mattis -- secretary mattis and general dunford were responsible for the 11 8 or so missiles used. quite how many got through we don't know. the u.s. said some surface-to-air retaliation by syria took place. we have no idea whether or not the suggestion that's 70 out of 110 may have been intercepted on the way out. to say personally that would be remarkably impressive for a defense system. we see today bashar al assad receiving phone calls from his iranian counterpart, but also walking calmly into work. the marbled entrance hall as he seems to glide, showing he hasn't skipped a beat, hasn't lost a moment's sleep. i have to say russia and iran, while putting out the usual rhetoric, the kremlin demanding a u.n. security council meeting suggesting that international norms have been broken. we're not see seeing anything on the ground personally in terms of retaliation so far. they don't appear to be hit or angry at this stage. they don't appear to be that many human losses, three injured they say partially because missiles were intercepted. that could

secretary mattis when he was general mattis was part of the initial invasion forces in iraq.t of the force that went in thinking he was there to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. which was an intelligence failure. and it's admitted. sometimes that happens. he wanted to ensure in fact the syrians used nerve agents. in douma. your conversation about turkey and the allies in the region. secretary mattis and dunford have good friendships with not only the turks but other militaries and governments. and chief of defenses in that particular region. and know the tenuousness of relation shils. the turkish government is one thing. the turkish military is quite another. and both spider and rick talking about lt curds. i spent a great deal of time in northern iraq. they are a magnificent fighting force but have various factions throughout the region. and i think both general dunford and secretary mattis know that they have to keep that alliance with the curds as well as maintain the capability with the turks as part of the nato force. very complex very complicated. that's only one

we understand that general mattis, secretary mattis is on his way to the white house. there are indications, reports, that there probably will not be any military action today. but i do want to read to you what noah rothman just wrote. i think we have it here. imagine a post world war ii germany but without a conference that established firmly delineated zones and control. instead those zones are fluid and each power is testing the other to see where its freedom of action ends and another's begins. this is an unthinkably dangerous condition. the risk of an accident or miscalculation triggering a broader great power conflict is extraordinarily high. pretending we can avoid engagement in that project is a dangerous exercise in self-delusion. your thoughts? >> exercises in self-delusion are what we do best in washington. that's kind of our jam. >> dana: when we have our military about to take some action, those considerations have to be quite carefully decided. >> secretary matt is, of course, is well aware of the political considerations here. you have a president whose

secretary of defense mattis said this is a one-time shot.than an hour after they said we're prepared to sustain this. the french foreign minister said if they cross this red line again we will strike again. what is the message you got out of all the input you received yesterday? >> i don't think there's necessarily an inconsistency in that. general mattis is speaking about this particular action and retribution for the recent activities of the syrians. and i think what the president was speaking towards if the syrians continue this, as well as the french, we could revisit this again. and i don't think that's necessarily difficult to put together from the three different comments that were made. >> let's talk about mr. putin and second order effects. first of all, do you think putin blinked? why did he allow assad to do this in the first place? do you think he blinked and what happened as a consequence second order impacts of these attacks last night? >> the comments to understand why he would do this is confusing. and i suspected he made the

and so far, those are experience including general mattis have been able to hold sway. i think he will be able to continue to hold sway at a time when it's extremely difficult to do so when you have some -- a certain measure of erratic behavior and speech coming out of the west wing. at the end of the day, i think the president relies on this steadfastness of general mattis and the other generals who were at the forefront of using the military power. i think it's interesting to to note that the president yesterday brought up two words that you wouldn't have heard in the use of the military instrument. he said we're going to use economic and diplomatic instruments, too. that may not just be rhetoric. >> that's colonel jack jacobs. thank you very much for joining us. now i want to bring in kevin cerelli. john than allenen is a political reporter for nbc news digital. jonathan, let me start with you and get your sense about the timing that led to these strikes last night. there was this warning, this salvo from the president on twitter earlier in the week that it was going

mattis said we are not out to get involved in the syrian civil war. he described tonight strike as proportionate to the last about one hour long and began at 9:00 p.m. eastern. jenner--general dunford said they tried to engage tonight but there were no allies and he also said they did not give russia a heads up about the target. >> with regard to the russian concerns we specifically identify these targets to mitigate the risk of russian forces being involved in we used our normal deconfliction channels that are active this week to work through the airspace issues and so forth. we did not do any coordination with the russians on the strikes nor did we pre-notified them. >> the strikes are over for now in about three targets we are told. a scientific research center and damascus a facility where they produce and test chemical weapons according to the pentagon. there was also a chemical storage facility in west holmes about two hours north of damascus and another chemical weapons storage facility near homs. assad lost extensive chemical weapons. mattis s

general mattis, secretary mattis, you have a joint program office with the coast guard and the navy right now for icebreakers. there's no joint strategy on icebreakers. the coast guard has their own arctic strategy and the navy has their own arctic strategy and i wonder if you can combine those into a joint arctic strategy? >> we work, as you know, very closely. i don't hold a meeting with the chairman and the four stars with the coast guard in the room. we intend to stay collaborative and we have different authority and different missions and they need to be in the arctic. certainly, we have not prioritized the arctic rid now due to the other situations from korea and syria to the situation vis-a-vis russia and the south china sea. >> would russia be a reason to increase our presence in the arctic? >> i think what we increase there is what we would look at. what type of forces clearly search and rescue in the arctic is a high priority and environmental protection and some of these things are want best done by the u.s. military, but i would have no problem supporting the department of hom

secretary mattis. one of our concerns here obviously is russia, i'm following up on my fellow marine's comments on nato. one of the focuses we've had is e.d.i., european defense initiative. last year's n.d.a. we asked for a report asking specifically what kind of resources, tooling, locations, in general to give us more information so we can actually come up with a good e.d.i. this coming nmple d.a. that's not arrived yet. we're about to go back into the ndaa. so i'm just wondering when is that report going to come out? we want to be helpful, we want to make sure we're giving you guys everything you need but we need that information to properly size the budget for e.d.i. >> i regret that you don't have it yet. there's over 1,700 reports i'm due every year to you all. i confess at times we have been late on a few. chairman, do you have anything on the e.d.i.? >> congressman, i'm not sure about that specific report. although i've looked that the edetails of the $6.5 billion in this year's submission. bro

, retired general james mattis. i wonder what sense you have of the national security policy apparatus of a these strikes took place. ambassador john bolton joining the white house just a few days ago as the national security adviser. as you watched all of this unfold what did it tell you about who wields power and who has influence over the president when these decisions need to be made. >> clearly jim mattis has the influence. he has an enormous amount of gravitas. the president seemingly never faces off with jim mattis because he respects him enormously. and he should. i have been a friend of jim mattis for many years. he's an amazing gentleman. he is like a a chameleon in many ways. on the one hand he can he to marines in the coarsest terms about intimate killing. on the other hand he can meet with world leaders and he can talk logic to the president. other times he can speak about cicero. an amazing man. >> last question, where do we go from here general scales? this is a question put to the prime minister of t

that was james mattis. the french presidency hasissued james mattis.n against the chemical weapons facility of the syrian regime. it is not immediately clear whether the planes were taking off from an aircraft carrier or a military base on land. the alice a presidential palace did not specify from where they were taking off and provided no further details. —— elysee president shall palace. the video was posted shortly after president macron ordered a military intervention in syria alongside the uk and the us. joining me now is a turkey a nalysts uk and the us. joining me now is a turkey analysts specialising in the middle east, us politics and syria. —— turkey analysts. let's talk about a player in the region, turkey. what do you think about the events of the past few hours? this morning, actually, president erdogan stated that the inaudible is softening. he said these strikes, it looks like from his remarks, he saw these strikes today, a distant possibility. but apparently he was wrong. he has been getting much closer with the russian president putin,

part of the rub with mattis was mattis was a retired four star general and mcmaster was an active threer so he was kind of outranked by mattis in that respect. also as secretary of defense, mattis was still in some sense his boss. in meetings, mcmaster would refer to nikki haley as nikki and rex tillerson as rex but he called mcmaster sir. >> that is certainly indicative. you've been covering the white house for so many years and know all these dynamics. mcmaster, it seemed, tried to ingratiate himself on a number of points, but now what we've seen from his last speech, most recent speech, he's unleashed in terms of the substance of the job. >> they really were different in terms of where they saw the world going, in terms of foreign policy, russia, some clearly major differences there and you saw that in mcmaster's remarks as he was leaving the white house. i thought it was interesting in that terrific new york article that -- the discussions about briefings and having to reduce all of the briefing to a small card. i remember speaking to an official last year who said that one way to g

secretary mattis and general dunford. we wish to commend you for developing a strategy that correctly prioritizes the threats we face. now comes the more difficult task, implementing the strategy. one of chairman mccain's priorities has been considering if the department is properly structured to take on this huge task and as the committee will look toward the upcoming nbndaa process, we appreciate your thoughts about what we can do to help you. even if we get the strategy and structure right, you cannot be successful if congress does not deliver the resources needed to implement this strategy. we know how damaging it has been as we have time and time again failed to do our job and passed appropriations bills. instead, passing cr after cr. we welcome your testimony about impact it.uld that would be one of my first questions, what would happen if we had not done this and what would happen if we do not do it again for 2020 and coming years. this is especially important because we are not yet out of the woods on sequestratio

first, secretary of defense jim mattis plays a significant role in these decisions. his stature, which we feared had been significantly undercut by the departure of his friend rex tillerson still in tact. he got the president to slow down, think about it, think about the targeting, think about the danger of conflict with russia. i thought that was important. second point, i think we're working together much more closely than this administration had in some other kri seize with allies. role of france and president macron saying he is responsible for shaping the policy. interesting not least because our allies feel a stake in what we're doing. they feel connected to it. i think that's an improvement. finally to richard's point, do we have a strategy for syria? the answer is no, but we're a little closer than where we were a week, ten days ago. we have nikki haley, i wish i was hearing this from the president, but nikki haley saying we're going to keep your troops in eastern syria for some long while. our goals there are complicated. we need to defeat isis. we need to e

we confined it to the chemical weapons type targets. >> there is mattis. he is being specific, as was theresa may talking specific points they were hitting on target and the fact that these were specifically to stop the continuation of the chemical warfare done in syria. where do they go from here? if this strikes, if the syrians are having one narrative and the uk, france and the united states are having completely different narrative, where do they go from here? >> what do they do if the status quo remains the same, president assad continues to strike out at the civilian population? it was interesting to hear the defense secretary talk about how they wanted to strike at the chemical weapons facilities but not broaden out the conflict. we heard the same from prime minister may. she said a development site, a storage site and bunker used in the attacks. nothing to degrade the capabilities of, again, the russian military or the syrian government. of course, one of the things we talked so thoroughly about in the days leading up to the strike were the anti-ai

leaders about about how confident they are we heard james mattis before the u.s. congress when he was speaking before the u.s. house armed services committee before the u.s. congress he said he did not he did not have any proof that the syrian government was responsible but he believes that they were so so we've heard a lot of mixed messages this week now in the aftermath of donald trump's remarks the attack came we heard explosions in damascus the syrian capital of damascus now it's important to note that damascus is a part of syria that is under the control of the syrian government and there are syrians from all across the country who have had to flee their homes during the course of this war as extremists and terrorists that want to topple the syrian government have been gaining ground and seizing area people have fled their homes and taken refuge in damascus receiving protection from bombs from the syrian government the syrian government has been offering protection to its citizens in damascus a lot of the military operations in recent months have been the syr

mattis said they had nothing to do with the strike. mattis was asked if he's satisfy in the iran nuclear deal if they could handle instances of cheating. but he didn't want to get ahead of his recommendation about whether to stay in the deal or not. >> neil: thanks. if it comes down to it, we can trust these guys, the iranians, how can we deal with this guy? the leader of north korea. retired general richard newton. good to have you. we're looking into the proof that the israelis have that the iranians have been cheating. at face value, do you think they have? >> well, good afternoon, neil. proof will be in the pudding in what the intelligence pans out. i don't have access to it. secretary mattis didn't get out in front of what he's seen or not soon. i'll tell you this, you cannot trust iran. they're the largest exporter of terrorism. they're not to be trusted. it wouldn't surprise me that prime minister netanyahu has the evidence. in my view, i've said this before, i don't think this is a good deal. i'm with. trump on this. but whethe

is tonight's message that general mattis, sorry, secretary of defense mattis wanted to deliver, that this is going to be a deterrent? did we use enough fire power, in your assessment to make that message clear? what, if anything, guarantees we are not going to be down this road in a couple months from now? >> there's no guarantee. he still has chemical weapons stockpiled, plenty of them, too. this is not necessarily a destruction of his capability as a message and punishment. he can use them again. i don't think he will, but he can use them again. about the numbers of weapons, don't forget we have three times as many targets as we did last time and second, we like to have multiple warheads going into targets. we want to make sure the target gets penetrated and destroyed properly and to take up the slack in the event any of the weapons fail to get to the target, get shot down, get jammed and so on. we always use lots more weapons than we need. i think the message has been delivered clearly. >> we'll see if president assad hears that message going forward. colonel jack jacobs, stick ar

but once again had you mattis and trump not totally on the same page but mattis being able to navigate and pence are the two best at navigating trump and being able to stick around while maintaining some level of authority. >> let me ask you about something that i think is catching a lot of people's attention. i know that axios is look at how issues that are likely to be big in the midterm elections aren't actually receiving much coverage in the media now that they're not front and center in congress. what did you find out about that? >> well, if you look especially at the last month of cable coverage stormy daniels getting way more coverage than any debate about healthcare or taxes. particularly on taxes, this really matters for republicans because we've now seen a decrease in the number of people who have a favorable opinion of the tax cut. and republicans are really banking on the fact that giving tax cuts in an election year would benefit the party because there would be an economic effect, upward effect and people would feel like with more money in their pocket they'd be more appr